DroneKit Python Autostart on Raspberry Pi & Pixhawk Hexacopter

[@Lag80kWow]

Hi Dennis, I wanted to thank you because this series of videos about dronekit + raspberry Pi have really helped me. I'm also doing some autonomous flight, for a college project. Hope everything goes well in the test field !

[@dennisbaldwin]

So glad to hear that. Thanks for the feedback and good luck with your project.

[@telemetrygeeks6317]

Hi Dennis, I don't know if you have solved your problem of how to trigger running your autostart script (or any other mission script or Pi application for that matter) with a transmitter switch, but if not, here is a fairly simple possible solution: Use a receiver controlled switch (

[@dennisbaldwin]

Amazing stuff. I like that approach and will have to give it a try. Many thanks for sharing!

[@stephengloor8451]

btw if you do follow the ap setup don't bother with the networking to the Ethernet as you don't want a router. if you leave it out you can still connect the Ethernet port to you home network and access the net for updates while connected into the pi via wireless.

[@dennisbaldwin]

Great tip. Thanks for sharing that.

[@mishagunter]

Thank you very much for this video, but I have one last question and I hope you will help me. How to download / run script py? I connected to pixhawk on your video. Thank you! I hope for your help!

[@samacumen]

Hi Dennis. Did you use the ArduPilot (Arducopter) flight stack OR PX4 flight stack for your tests? Thanks for the video.

[@dennisbaldwin]

ArduPilot, but am hoping to test PX4 soon. Thanks for the question.

[@blackmennewstyle]

I can watch command lines in a terminal all day long

[@dennisbaldwin]

Ha! I'm glad to hear you like the terminal as much as I do. It's my favorite thing about computing on *nix. Have a great week and thanks for the feedback.

[@DaveMerc]

Good stuff. I can see this leading to some interesting learning experiences.

[@dennisbaldwin]

Right on. I'm definitely learning a lot just by going through this process. I hope you're doing well and thanks for following along.

[@HiteshAH]

Do you have any wiring diagram for APM 2.8 ?

[@johnyunderscore]

Looks good. Could you split ppm signal wire from your receiver and connect it also to R. PI? It would have to read raw pwm signals but would have full information of the commands and switches.

[@benjaminmathon7417]

I was also thinking about that, on a X8R for example, configured with 9-16ch, you can use : switch high : override the channel 5 to stabilize switch middle : channel 16 connected to the PI to launch the script switch low : override the channel 7 or 8 to trigger a RTL

[@dennisbaldwin]

Good suggestion guys. I really like that suggestion. Will look into it and thanks.

[@dennisbaldwin]

I responded to Benjamin Mathon but wasn't sure if you'd get a notification as well. Great idea. I know there is a PWM library for Pi so I'll look into it. Thank you.

[@mrutubeuk]

Did you get anywhere with the PWM library? ...Also are you using the wifi from the PI on telem2 or using the wifi from radio device plugged into telem1?

[@PopularWebz]

Your companion computer videos go me thinking: you should be able to connect to the NEX 5 and have full camera control of exposure, aperture, shutter speed etc. That would be a very powerful and practical use case. I suppose that is what the Solo does with the GoPro but it would be interesting to see this on other platforms.

[@dennisbaldwin]

Neat idea. I need to look into the exposure settings a bit more. I know it's possible to snap photos and set focus but I'm not sure about exposure...or how to tap into it. This is a great post on doing simple stuff with Pi and the NEX 3: scribblesandsnaps.com/2015/02/22/build-a-raspberry-pi-based-cable-shutter-release-for-sony-cameras/ I'll see if I can dig anything up regarding exposure. Thanks.

[@MrRaptureCapture]

Dennis, Do you have a parts list and where to obtain them?

[@arifeazman1067]

can you tell the command to see the list of processes at the end of the video?

[@tusharkhade8813]

Hello how to make this quadcopter detailed info nd components of its nd also how to add ultrasonic sensor using pixhawk with rasberry pi if necessary to make drone obstracals avoidence suggest mi which components are used fot it

[@cameronm8457]

Im sorry if I have missed something could you explain to me how you managed to se up the mode change on your Tarinis Controller i am very interested to see how it is done. Thanks in advance!

[@dennisbaldwin]

This is a good explanation: www.fpvblog.com/rctech/how-to-bind-x8r-to-the-frsky-taranis-in-different-modes Hope it helps and good luck.

[@prithvirajkumar6825]

hey I've been trying to develop an autonomous drone using raspberry pi 3 b+ and pixhawk , I've successfully controlled it manually .When i try to control it with python script i wasn't able to execute simple_takeoff() function, but I was able to arm and disarm by drone using script. Can u help me with that .... Thanks in advance ..

[@MrJawwadzahed]

Hey Dennis, I saw this other video of yours where you mentioned using pixhawk and Pi with OpenCV. I wanna combine that with this autostart script. Can you guide me a bit about the packages that I need to install?

[@dennisbaldwin]

Jay, thanks for the comment. I need to look into this again. It's been a while. I've been looking into OpenCV for use with the DJI video feed, but would really like to do this with RPi and the camera. Search on Google "pyimagesearch" if you're not aware of this guy. He's amazing :)

[@CraigHollabaugh]

Hey this is great info. do you ever have problems with the RPI filesystem getting corrupted because of power cycles?

[@dennisbaldwin]

I haven't had that problem but that's a good question. I will definitely keep on eye on this.

[@benjaminbarnes679]

Hi Dennis thanks for the great videos! have you been able to figure out how to to invoke a DroneKit script that is on the Pi from a GCS or your transmitter?

[@noahhandwerk5847]

Thats exactly my problem. Specifically, I have not been able to get the python script on the Pi to find the dronekit package. Any tips?

[@benjaminbarnes679]

@@noahhandwerk5847 what I found was to use a switch on the transmitter to change a channel and then in the drone kit script write a code so that when that channel is changed the next part of the code starts to run

[@SirArghPirate]

I'm sorry if this is a stupid question, but what are the advantages of using a raspberry (computer) to control a multicopter when a microcontroller is far cheaper, far smaller and lighter, often both 5V and 3.3V tolerant and wastes less power?

[@benjaminmathon7417]

Well the Pi will work with the flight controller. there are a lot of scenarios where it's useful, for exemple : You have an oil platform on the west coast of Africa during the night and you want to track a possible pirate ship. The radar of your platform send data to the Pi, and the Pi command you flight controller to follow the ship, all you have to do is to press the "take-off and track switch". with an arduino you could interface with MavLink, but I imagine it would be a lot more time consuming and complicated to do so.

[@dennisbaldwin]

As Benjamin pointed out there are a lot of interesting things that can be done with a companion computer. The flight controller generally doesn't have the additional processing power to do things such as image recognition or obstacle avoidance a companion computer allows us to program additional functionality. Companion computers will become more and more powerful (see Intel's Edison) and allow us to write software that then communicates to the flight controller via MAVLink protocol. Great question and thanks for sharing your thoughts.

[@stevec5000]

One big drawback to this plan is that he's using a Pixhawk PX4 but there's no way to get one of them to actually work! Maybe a DJI Naza that can really fly would be a better choice?

[@diegomeza515]

Pixhawk PX4 does work and does fly. Follow the documentation and READ... cheers. Dji boys want everything easy and rtf...

[@stevec5000]

Wrong! PX4 does not work and can't work because the software needed to configure it like Mission Planner and QgroundControl has not worked in 2 1/2 years that I've been trying to use it! Each program still has over 400 unresolved bugs! If you don't believe it they are all documented in the bug reporting area of Github.com where the programs are stored and maintained! Are you being paid to harass everyone who complains? Why don't you move out of your Mom's basement and get a real job before you get in trouble for using her computer without consent?

[@anishshrestha3607]

where can i get this scripts

[@manojnani2454]

Hi Dennis Can u provide me your link for this Python programe

[@vik8143]

Looks amazing

[@dennisbaldwin]

Thanks for the feedback.

[@00mcalihe00]

is the taransis connected directly to the pixhawk or though the raspberry pi?

[@dennisbaldwin]

The Taranis communicates to the X8R receiver, which is directly connected to the Pixhawk. The RPi is connected to the Pixhawk over the serial port and sends/receives commands to/from Pixhawk over that port.

[@00mcalihe00]

Dennis Baldwin Alright. Thank you

[@kenisvery]

Is it possible to doing any acrobatic manoeuvre with Dronekit python?

[@dennisbaldwin]

APM has a flip mode which I would think that you could call from DroneKit. I'll see if I can learn more and share my results. diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/arducopter-2-7-auto-flip Take care.

[@kenisvery]

Dennis Baldwin thanks!! how about flying in formation?

[@harryc53]

Nice Work!

[@dennisbaldwin]

Thanks for following along.

[@pepeBetico1994]

Hi Dennis!! i get on mi Rpi "Waiting for the vehicle to inicialise" what i should do? I can connect it ,when i do changes with my transmisor (controller) i can see the changes on the rpi so the connection is good but i cant run .py it seems pls help me.

[@dennisbaldwin]

Hi! Maybe this will help: discuss.dronekit.io/t/no-ending-of-waiting-for-vehicle-to-initialise/278/2 Let us know how it goes.

[@pepeBetico1994]

Dennis Baldwin thank KZbin Thankd you very much i will try again with that info!!

[@pepeBetico1994]

i sill have the problem.. dont know what to do How it suposse to get started the quad? in stablize then passing to auto with the transmitter (turnigy9x) What im doing is Turn on the quad (that is connected to the Rpi) sudo su mavproxy to test the conexion (that works) then quit mavproxy and run the script of takeoff_and_land.py But i still got waiting for the vehicle to inicialise what mode do i need to do? Many thanks in advance u are helping me a lot

[@rnvlogs96]

is it possible to use custom firmware with pixhawk and dronekit??

[@dennisbaldwin]

I most cases, yes. It's largely dependent on the custom firmware developer and whether or not they've implemented the interfaces.

[@dharmakc8944]

Could you please make all these related to dronekit in one playlist in a order. It would be great to have that. Thank you.

[@dennisbaldwin]

I plan on doing some more tutorials on DroneKit in the near future and will get everything organized. Thank you for the feedback.

[@dharmakc8944]

Ya - Your tutorials look good. It would be good to have them in a play list. All the best for your other videos.

[@urbancityscapes6529]

HI Dennis I'd like to invest in a ready to go system. WIth 6 drones, totally autonomous but small drones... Do you do this type of consulting? Is it possible to buy a system ready from you? if you do not sell, do you know anyone who can give me a similar solution? thank you very much for the attention.

[@dennisbaldwin]

Hi, I don't do this type of work but I may know a few people that can help. Please send me an email to db at unmannedairlines dot com and I'll try to put you in touch. Good luck with your project.

[@haruncalim1078]

hi dennis I dont make autonomous flight can you help me please thank you

[@MyMuthuselvam]

thank you very much

[@dennisbaldwin]

No problem. Thanks for watching.

[@imemyself2820]

What is your work, if I may be so bold to ask? You must be some kind of engineer.

[@dennisbaldwin]

No worries. I am a software engineer with a degree in electrical engineering. Wish I had more time to do things related to my degree, but I mostly spend my time in code.

[@almogstern]

Hey Dennis, first off great videos! I have learned a lot! I'm having trouble understanding how you got the script running on start-up. I am trying to do the same but with no luck (even with editing the /etc/rc.local). The RPi connects to the pixhawk on start up with the edit to /etc/rc.local (according to ardupilot.org/dev/docs/raspberry-pi-via-mavlink.html): ( date echo $PATH PATH=$PATH:/bin:/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin export PATH cd /home/pi screen -d -m -s /bin/bash mavproxy.py --master=/dev/ttyAMA0 --baudrate 57600 --aircraft MyCopter ) > /tmp/rc.log 2>&1 Now I wish to begin a second script on start-up. When I open a terminal window and type it in: python start_up.py everything works! as you have done I have created a start.sh in my root directory (not 100% sure I did it correctly) and went into crontab -e and added the same line as you, but 1. I can not seem to see if the script is running in the background (I don't know what program you used to see towards the end of the video "here we see the script is starting") and 2. well, it just doesn't seem to be working. I realize this is an old thread/video but would very much appreciate the help, Thanks

[@dennisbaldwin]

Try running the top command and you see all scripts that are running.

[@almogstern]

Hey Dennis, 'top' command it is! In addition, perhaps you might find this useful, in order to get another (perhaps even more than one) pi scripts to run on startup i've simply modified: ( date echo $PATH PATH=$PATH:/bin:/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin export PATH cd /home/pi screen -d -m -s /bin/bash mavproxy.py --master=/dev/ttyAMA0 --baudrate 57600 --aircraft MyCopter ) > /tmp/rc.log 2>&1 to ( date echo $PATH PATH=$PATH:/bin:/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin export PATH cd /home/pi screen -d -m -s /bin/bash mavproxy.py --master=/dev/ttyAMA0 --baudrate 57600 --aircraft MyCopter screen -d -m -s /bin/bash yourscript.py ) > /tmp/rc.log 2>&1 and when running 'top' i can see both mavproxy & python are running. another thing, the pixhawk has several AUX exits that emit a PWM signal (servo controls) that can be calibrated to the RC controller. Its possible to have a script running with a while(GPIO != 1) on the pi and with a simple ADC (i used arduino) to translate the PWM signal from the AUX to a numerical value and forward to a GPIO on the Pi to initiate or stop a script Again, thanks for the videos!

[@arpitsrivastava8431]

how to setup pixhawk for autonomous drone. Can you tell me what to do for pixhawk what to setup and configure

[@karanpatel2866]

can you give your script ??

[@dennisbaldwin]

Here is the takeoff and land script: gist.github.com/dbaldwin/9185b702091148580fa836c1911f8735

[@karanpatel2866]

Thank you. We implemented this entire system perfectly, now we are going to fly the drone !! fun!!!!

[@dennisbaldwin]

Congratulations!

[@jianhuaixie]

thank you so much

[@dennisbaldwin]

No problem. Hope it helped.